In The Buff: An Interview With MSCLS

On the heels of his newly-released tune “Time To Move”, we sat down for a quick chat with Austin producer MSCLS to learn about his style, sound, and upcoming USA fall tour. Read on for more about MSCLS, and be sure to grab the free download of “Time To Move”!

1.Hey! Thanks for chatting with us at PressPlay. Tell our readers a bit more about you and your music!

M: Thanks for having me! This is a fairly new project for me. Previously I had been doing a bit heavier bass music under another moniker. I decided to launch MSCLS because I was getting kind of bored with my current situation and hadn’t really been inspired to write much. I decided that I was going to just do me and kind of stop worrying about what I was writing and just let it come out naturally. House music is pretty much the first thing I latched onto when I first got into the world of electronic music and it has remained the genre that I always go back to and love. This whole experience so far has been really organic with the way everything has gone so far with this project.

2. You’re about to embark on a tour around the US this fall. What are you most looking forward to at these fall shows?

M: I am beyond excited for this fall tour run! I’d say one of the highlights for sure is going back to Hawaii to play. I was fortunate enough to have been booked there last year on the island of Oahu in Honolulu and had a chance to meet some awesome people and play a few really cool shows. This time around we’re doing a bit more around the island in terms of shows and venturing to some other the other islands for a few beach parties and whatnot. I haven’t had a chance to visit the other islands so I would say this would be the thing I’m looking forward to the most since it’s almost turned into a mini Hawaiian tour in the middle of the fall dates.

3. You have a lot of UK influences in your music, including garage and house sounds that are ultra-popular across the pond. How have you blended American electronic music with international styles?

M: Well, I do love a lot of stuff that has been coming out of the UK and other parts of Europe for a long time so it has had a huge influence on the way I write and the tonal elements I use when writing. I don’t hear many American producers using many sounds inspired by Garage, 2 – Step, or some of the other sounds that have blossomed from the UK, so I do my best to incorporate a lot of them. A lot of my inspiration stems from, Chicago House, Detroit Techno, early UK Garage & 2-Step, as well as a bit of techno here and there. I just have a huge love for a lot of different sounds and I try to take the aspects I like most about the various sounds and kind of combine them to form the MSCLS sound.

4. What are the top three lessons you’ve learned as an artist while developing your sound and production style?

M: The first lesson and one of the most important is to finish songs. I still have trouble with this sometimes, but it’s very important to commit to ideas early on in the writing process and get the arrangement finished. At the very least even if you don’t like all the sounds in the song, you will have a full arrangement written and can swap out sounds until you get it just right. Another important lesson I have learned is “less is more”. I used to try and cram a lot of sounds into a recording when I first started producing and in retrospect a lot of them sounded messy and had too much going on in the track to be able to appreciate creation parts of the track. It has taken me a while to realize this but I’m glad I it happened because It’s very important I feel to be able to have room for the track to breathe and not be smothered by a wall of sounds. The third I would say is to enjoy what you’re doing. This is a huge & of the utmost importance is to HAVE FUN! I know there are a lot of times when it can be stressful with deadlines or studio/touring schedules, things going wrong at gigs, and so forth. However, the reason why I and why most people love writing music and playing it is because we enjoy our jobs and that’s what makes it such a wonderful thing. At the end of the day if you’re not having fun and are not happy with music you’ve made then maybe take a break for a few days, go outside and grab some sunshine or take a trip to the lake and BBQ with some friends or family. Keep yourself happy and keep writing fun music.